Duncton Rising (42 page)

“With
him,”
panted Heron confidentially in little more than a whisper, “there’s only two reasons for asking to see a particular sister: for information or for
that.”

“
That?” repeated Privet. The pace had slowed a little, and now they were merely going fast. The long tunnel, which had various side-turns along the way but in general headed southwards, if Privet’s sense of direction was correct, now dipped down. Since the surface was still only a short way above, and the soil was darker and more moist than before, she deduced they were going down into a shallow valley and that their journey would end near water. From the complete lack of tree roots, and what she remembered of the surface when they first arrived, and the scent of livestock, she also guessed they had been travelling beneath pasture grounds. Now the soil held evidence of dead tree roots, the livestock scents had gone, and she guessed they were near a wood.

From Heron’s silence, and her coy but knowing look, Privet guessed that
“that”
with Quail meant mating, which was, she remembered well enough, a thing Senior Brothers were privileged to do with the captive sisters.

“If it isn’t mating,” she said matter-of-factly, and to Heron’s embarrassment, “and frankly in my case I doubt if it would be, then it must be information. I have found that Newborn males find it rather hard to believe that a female can scribe.”

Plumb came to a sudden stop, so sudden that Privet bumped into her, and the other sisters tumbled to a halt as well, all telling her at once she must not even think such words as scribing, let alone say them, because it was a blasphemy.

“But,” said Privet cheerfully, “it’s perfectly true, there’s no reason why a female should not scribe. Why, I myself —”

Heron, Plumb and Thistle nearly fell over each other to stop her saying more – “Please, Sister Privet,
don’t,
we’re almost there and in no time a brother will come and... you
mustn’t
blaspheme” – but it was not their terror of the brothers that stopped her, but the look in the eyes of the fourth mole, the one so far unnamed.

“Why,” thought Privet to herself with sudden conviction, “she
knows
females can scribe, she knows more than she’s letting on, just as I did when I lived in Blagrove Slide. Poor mole, she’s frightened for her life. Poor thing.”

Whether or not the mole guessed what Privet was thinking was impossible to say, but she looked down as if collecting her wits, and then up, and in a voice louder than the others said, “Sister, you must never say things like that. Everymole knows females can’t scribe or do anything needing skill. Only brothers can, and merely thinking it will get you into trouble and you’ll deserve it. No wonder Senior Brother Inquisitor Quail wants to see you!”

This quietened them all down, and somewhat chastened they trekked the last stage of their journey in silence until they came to a large portal at which squatted a hugely fat male with a round, soft face.

“You’re late and you’re in trouble, Sisters four,” he declared in a curious squeaky voice, adding as he eyed Privet with vindictive distaste, “and
you
are the cause. Take her to the guest burrows and one of you stay with her so she doesn’t wander. The Senior Brother Inquisitor is coming before too long and oops-a-daisy it won’t be a pretty thing if he knows of your tardiness, no!”

“We’ll bring you some worms. Senior Brother Squelch,” said Heron.

“Lots!” said Plumb.

“And lots!” declared Thistle, hurrying Privet past. These promises were made in a half jocular, half puppish kind of way, which left the mole Squelch giggling like a female, though his eyes remained cold, lingering on Privet and the fourth of the sisters as he whispered darkly, and then repeated in a squeaky half-scream, “Two of a kind! Two of a land! Squelch sees with his all-seeing eye, Squelch scents with his all-scenting snout, Squelch tastes with his all-licking tongue – ha ha ha!”

Then, as they scurried by, doing their best to avoid his groping attempts to caress them, he flicked out his tongue, which was very long, and played it about in an obscene way, laughing and panting and making something of a dint in Privet’s new-discovered calm.

She had gone cold, the more so because the four sisters who had accompanied her had, in a way, become more themselves, more ordinary, and she sensed that not far below the surface was normality, and humour, and even warmth; which contrasted with the corrupted, tainted and perverted evil that she had sensed – almost scented – about the mole Squelch, and the system of things he must represent.

“We’ve talked to you too much, Sister Privet,” said Heron, suddenly cold, and the others went chilly too; “please don’t report us.”

They went through some more tunnels, unnaturally clean and sterile, and then past another plump male mole, who might have been Squelch’s brother, though he did not have the special vile energy that Squelch exuded. He blinked and nodded as they went by and called after them in a raspy voice, “Put her in the end one.”

The “end one” turned out to be the last of several empty cells, with no way in or out but by one portal, and too deep down in the earth to easily burrow out of through the hard, dry sub-soil above. Clearly the “guests” – though she seemed to be the only one – were put in a sterile part of the system, and under the watchful eye of unfit and unpleasant males.

“One of us has got to stay with her,” said Heron unenthusiastically. There was a general air of reluctance to volunteer and finally Plumb turned to the unnamed mole and said,
“You
do it for now, and we’ll relieve you tomorrow.”

“Don’t want to,” said the mole. “She’s a sinner and corrupt. Don’t like her.”

“Do it now and it’ll be over the sooner,” said Thistle with a weary sigh, apparently used to the over-virtuous attitudes of this particular sister.

“Good luck with the Senior Brother Inquisitor!” said Plumb, and with that last heartfelt wish the three moles were gone, their duty done, and Privet was left alone with the righteous female.

“Yet, is she so righteous?” mused Privet to herself, eyeing her in a friendly way. “I somehow think not.”

“What is your name?” asked Privet.

“Sister Hope,” intoned the mole without expression.

“Your real name, like Plumb and Thistle and Heron are real names. The one before —”

“They should not have given their former names; I could report them.”

“But they know you won’t.”

The mole shook her head non-committally and said, “I’ll get your food. You are permitted two worms in the morning and two in the evening. We do not indulge ourselves here.”

“What is your name, mole?” asked Privet once more, her voice warm and friendly, and filled with the real sympathy she felt before a mole she knew was suffering in her silence, and wanted so much to talk. “You can scribe, can’t you, or you know something of it?”

The mole stared back at her, plainly upset and uncertain.

“Mustn’t... even talk,” she whispered, and was gone.

Privet watched after her, wondering how she might reach out to her and make her talk. Scribing! It seemed a long time since
she
had done that. So much had changed, so much been shed, and now there was this growing sense of rightness and certainty in herself that things would be well, things
were
well, if moles but knew it and learned to forget the worries they made for themselves.

“But it’s not so simple as that!” Privet thought, chiding herself for expecting all moles to be as she was. “So what can a mole like me do? I don’t want to fight like Rooster decided to so long ago, or command others as Maple wishes to and most certainly will. I don’t need to go on long journeys as Whillan surely must, or to find “opportunities” at every turn as Weeth seeks to do, and will! No, I’m more like Stour now, wanting only to be quiet and to find Silence, and to see moles live contentedly without interfering with each other so much. So what do I do to help? Can I do
anything?”

Privet was surprised to discover herself stanced down with her eyes almost closed, and going through these thoughts as clearly as she remembered ever having thought before. No rushing, no panic, no running hither and thither in her mind, and that companion calm, which had been but an acquaintance hours before, now felt a true friend, and one who was rapidly gaining in importance amongst all the feelings she had.

“The word that springs to mind is “exemplary”,” she said to herself, remembering the word the Newborns had used to justify the cruel punishment of the young moles who had run away to come... “Why, to come
here
to Bowdler of all places, where I’ve been brought. Those two moles were killed for doing what I’m made to do. How strange, how fickle, how upsetting the Stone’s will can be! But
exemplary,
now why do I think that? Because it is the only thing a mole can ever do to really influence others; be an example, to show them a way of being or doing. Well, then. Privet, what can
you
show anymole?”

As she arrived at this important point of her thinking, and began to address a question that she would ponder for some time yet, she heard the sound of the mole approaching once more, and turned her thoughts back to the problem of reaching through her fears. It seemed important that she did, for calm though
she
felt, others were in danger and much was happening, and the greater the number of moles who could free themselves, if only a little, from the thrall of the Newborns, the more likely was it that the

Newborns would not be able to change moledom the way they so fatally wished.

On a sudden impulse Privet went to a shadowed comer of the cell and scribed quickly on the earthen floor, stanced back, and was staring at it when Sister “Hope” came in bearing not two worms but three, which she placed near some nesting material. Privet did not move, but pointed instead at her scribing. The mole hurried over in alarm, stared down, reached her right paw out and ran it over the scribing as if to ken it, and looked more troubled still.

“Please, you mustn’t do that,” she said.

“Can you ken it?” asked Privet.

“I... not very well.”

“It says, “If you know your name, scribe it”. Well, mole,
do
you?
Can
you?”

“Scribe it...?” faltered the mole, her right paw fretting at the floor. She slowly reached out and scribed her name, then stanced back in alarm at what she had done, staring at it as if thinking that now she could not go back to what she had been before.

Privet quickly ran her paw over the scribing and turned back to the mole with a smile and said, “So, “Sister Hope”, your real name is Madoc?”

“Madoc,” repeated the mole, nodding vigorously and allowing herself the slightest of grins when she said the name, “is the name I was given at birth, and the name they said in the Midsummer ritual, and the name they took from me because it wasn’t suitable to keep it.”

“Why ever not?” asked Privet.

“You see, to be truly Newborn a mole must be given a new name; then she knows she must cast off the old ways and take on the new.”

Privet eyed her, unsure whether Madoc believed in what she said or not. That she was unhappy was plain, but a mole may be unhappy in her faith for a time and still feel that what she follows is true.

“
Are
you Newborn?”

“It’s very hard,” said Madoc, “and gets harder, to believe something is true when they do things so wrong. But I think being Newborn is right, it’s just other moles don’t behave as they should.”

“Other moles don’t behave as they should?” repeated Privet carefully. She had no wish to impose her own ideas on Madoc.

“I don’t think so. They hide things. They close their eyes to things. Like scribing: I know females can scribe because my mother could – she learnt it from her father who was a scribe here in Caer Caradoc before the Newborns came. My mother secretly taught me to scribe my name before I went with the Senior Brother. She said, “I’m teaching you this, my dear, because it will remind you of two things – the mole you are, and the mole you could be again.” My mother didn’t like the Newborns and didn’t like them calling me “Hope”.”

Privet smiled softly and said, “Well, I can understand that. I wouldn’t want a pup of mine called something different; certainly not “Hope”, which is a strange kind of name, though maybe there are moles for whom it might be appropriate.”

“What kind of moles?” said Madoc seriously. At least, she seemed serious about it, though there came to her eyes a tiny hint of a smile.

“That’s how her mother looked,” thought Privet to herself with sudden insight. “Her father a scribemole, and her mother a learning, humorous kind of mole, and it’s all in
this
mole’s face, despite the fear and doubt the Newborns have put into her. That’s like moledom too, full of things that have become hidden for a time because of the fear the Newborn dogma instills, but beneath the surface...”

“You’re a very intelligent mole,” said Madoc gravely. “I could see it in your eyes and in the way you refused to be hurried. It was reassuring to me because I’m intelligent too, more than some of the Senior Brothers.”

“You are?” said Privet, rapidly warming to Madoc.

She nodded and said, “Have you had pups?”

Privet hesitated only a moment before she said she had. She realized a mole cannot expect forthrightness from another if she is not honest herself

“What were their names?”

“Their real names?” said Privet, playing for time, though only because even now, and even having repeated the names to Whillan and the others, she found it hard to think of them, let alone say them, without wanting to cry. There are some losses a mole never fully recovers from.

“There were four of them, three females and a male: Brimmel, Loosestrife, Sampion and Mumble.”

Madoc pondered this information for a moment with a slight frown and then her brow cleared as if she had worked something out.

“You liked Loosestrife best of all —” she began.

“You’re right, mole,” interrupted Privet with pleasure.